The Commodore 1541 (also known as the CBM 1541 and VIC-1541) is a floppy disk drive (FDD) which was made by Commodore International for the Commodore 64 (C64), Commodores most popular home computer. The best-known FDD for the C64, the 1541 was a single-sided 170 kilobyte drive for 5¼- disks. The 1541 followed the previous Commodore 1540 (meant for the VIC-20).The 1541 was priced at under US$400 at its introduction. A C64 plus a 1541 cost about $900, while an Apple II with no disk drive cost $1395: the 1541 became widely popular; The demand caught Commodore by surprise, and the company struggled to produce the drive in adequate quantities.[citation needed] The first 1541 drives produced in 1982 had a label on the front reading VIC-1541 and had a white case to match the VIC-20. Failure rates on the 1541 initially were very high,[quantify] and the drives were virtually impossible to find. The lead editorial in the December 1983 issue of Computes Gazette lamented that four of the seven drives the magazine had in its editorial offices had failed. Eventually the problems subsided and the drive became nearly as widely available as the C64 itself. In 1983, the 1541 switched to the familiar gray case and a front label reading simply 1541 along with rainbow stripes to match the Commodore 64. The early (1982–83) 1541s had a spring eject mechanism (Alps Drive), and the discs often failed to release. This style of drive had the popular nickname Toaster Drive, because it required the use of a knife or other thin object to pry out the stuck media just like a piece of toast stuck in a real toaster (though this is inadvisable with real toasters). This was fixed later, when Commodore changed the vendor of the drive mechanism (Mitsumi) and adopted the flip-level Newtronics mechanism, greatly improving reliability. In addition, Commodore made the drives controller board smaller and reduced its chip count compared to the early 1541s (which had a large PCB running the length of the case, with dozens of TTL chips). The gray-case Newtronics 1541 was produced from 1984-86. The disk drive used Group Code Recording (GCR) and contained a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, doubling as a disk controller and on-board disk operating system processor. The number of sectors per track varied from 17 to 21 (an early implementation of Zone Bit Recording). The drives built-in disk operating system was CBM DOS 2.6. Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541 Commodore 1541-II Floppy Disk Drive. Die VC 1541 ist ein 5,25-Zoll-Diskettenlaufwerk für den Heimcomputer C64 von Commodore. Sie kam 1982 auf den Markt und wurde das erfolgreichste Modell der VC15xx-Serie. Die 1541 besitzt nur einen Schreib/Lese-Kopf und kann daher Disketten nur einseitig beschreiben. Um die volle Kapazität einer Diskette zu nutzen, kann man diese zum Beispiel mittels eines Diskettenlochers mit einer zusätzlichen Schreib/Lese-Kerbe an der linken Seite versehen. Auf einer solcherart modifizierten Diskette können dann durch Umdrehen weitere 165 KB gespeichert werden. Quelle: wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Commodore_1541_white.jpg&imgrefurl=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC1541&h=1333&w=2000&sz=375&tbnid=_WhFpDoKYcHiBM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=141&zoom=1&usg=__P87sxREguwLb8Nt84cAltS2z8gU=&docid=dW1wFbf00x5gkM&sa=X&ei=pRn2Upa5I4bVt